(2003)
In 1889, shortly after what would have been U. S. Grantís 75th birthday,
post commander Colonel Nelson A. Miles organized a committee to raise a
monument at Fort Leavenworth to the former president and general. The
group commissioned the American sculptor Lorado Taft. Taft was an
instructor at the Chicago Institute of Art and had just won an
international award for his work at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893. He
created a striking 9-foot statue atop a granite pedestal of similar
height. Nearly $5,000 for the commission was raised from the soldiers and
civilians on post, as well as from leading citizens of Kansas and
Missouri. Senator R.S. Ingalls of Kansas was the principal speaker at the
dedication. The site is near the original front entrance to the fort